Surrender
by MerryWeathers
Summary: Elphaba chooses to surrender her life, and surrender any grudges she's held in her past. Mostly musicalverse. OneShot, and minor Songfic to Kelly Clarkson's 'I Surrender'.


**Author's Note:**

Jeesh- I have had no muse whatsoever for SOOO long. This I wrote rather quickly, In reponse to my friend Ron's boredom. I am trying to get HIM to finish something, so I figured I'd finish this in order to get him motivated. This is, therefore, deticated to him- Blame his impatience for any spelling problems you may find (then please, email me and point them out, would you?)

Yay! My shortest, most not-long-winded Author's Note ever!

**Disclaimer-** I, obviously, Don't own Wicked, or the song- I Surrender. I am borrowing- I swear I'll give them back when I'm finished!

**I Surrender**

What once would have been easily considered one of the better pieces of real estate in the Centeral Vinkus area had long since gone to shambles. Stone and mortar crumbled on the outer walls, having taken many poundings by the generally harsher bouts of weather that had hit the area over many accumulated years. Tapestries were moth eatened and had a noticably musty scent to them. Banisters and beams had retained moisture from their years of general neglect by the resident sentries, and sagged and splintered in areas. Everything structural now about the old place was prone to groaning against the batterings of wind, no matter if it was a gust only a few knots below hurricane gales, or the slightest tickle of a breeze.

And, as some terrified Winkies looked up into the cracked lead widows, one room that night seemed to be completely aflame.

In truth, however, it was only the faint glows cast by hundreds of sources. Candles of many heights, weither made that way originally, or melted down during the hours they had already been lit. They covered the tops of a heavy oaken table, dripping wax in various hues of white, yellows, even off greens, so that they eventually melded into an untangible puddle the somewhat putrid color of vomit. Long, spindling candles, stuck up in their rightful tarnished candleabras, and as only a certain number of the correct holders could be found, candles of the same make were propped up between it's brethern. Shorter, fat candles which were supposed to be lit only on holy days or in case of extreme shortage also glowed with cheerily dancing flame. Small, twinkling baby candles which gave off a perfumed scent some would consider calming, flicked in and out of existence, wafting their scents into the usually stale air. The women surveying all these flames, however, only thought the mixture of smells added to the nausea she had felt before taking the time to lite their wicks.

_**There's so much life I've left to live**_

_**And this fire's burning still...**_

In the candlelight, shadows were cast, across the uneven cobbles of the rooms floor, the hem of her own shadowy-dress, and across the skin on her hands and face, as they flicked and chased each other with persumed merriment every time a slight puff of air ruffled past. They flicked a image to themselves in the glass of the windows, streaching their heights to the much large versions the villagers below were seeing.

Though in the dark hazel eyes of their watcher, they did the opposite, dwarfing themselves to tiny reflective pinpricks that only served to swim in her vision in dizzing swirls to match the sickly scents some of them exhuded. It was as if the flames, though technically things uncabable of controlling or even creating themself at will (though surely they'd want to be able to spark into existence any time they chose) swayed and cowerded on their tiny stocks of fat and wax-dipped string, as if afraid. As if they knew they were under the inpenitrable gaze of the largely notorious Wicked Witch of the West.

_How so like the many citizens of Oz_, Elphaba thought venomously, though the words never made it to her lips. Instead, she gripped another match in her hand, struck it against the rough stone of the door so that another tiny flame was added to the many already in the room, and tossed it with a practiced motion to light the kindling in the last unlit item of the room- a tall, rough iron brazier, the dark black plate just above her head. Within seconds it was cradling the greatest sheif of flames in the room.

She was still a moment, studying her handiwork- a display of quick-burning flames that would have made any self-respecting pyromaniac happy as the simplist child at the sight of it. It cast her shadow straight across the floor, against everything else already in the room, even casting some of it against the window, where the frightened squeaks of those below muffled their way through the glass, as they realised- what with the unmistakable shadow of a pointed hat and harsh face against the glass- who was behind the blaze they were seeing from outside.

In the shadows of the room, one or two monkeys conversed in shrieks and grunts only (seemingly) intelligible to themselves. Elphaba cast her glance over to them, noticed how one of the monkey's held it's wings still at an akward angle, and how it's shifting little feet sometime's tramped on the drooping edges, causing it to squeal in pain as it had yanked his newer, more sensitive appendage. Her immediate reaction was like a mother with her child, as Elphaba stepped forwards, and the monkey's looked up, unable to speak but almost pleading her with her eyes to do anything. She nelt, her dark dress pooling around the floor and her underfed body as she scratched the one monkey on his head, as she gently folded it's troublesome wings into an easier position she'd seen regular birds carry their, tucked neat upon each other. They wouldn't stay there for long, as the monkey's body wasn't made to secrete the wings away like a bird was, but it was really all she could do about it.

That thought alone, accompanied with the grudging knowledge that she'd done this too them in the first place, made tears, some of the few she'd ever allowed, spring to her eyes.

"I'm sorry."

A chatter from the other monkey, the one in the red coat who was not only the leader, but the only one she really had a name for (If it was his real name, she had no idea), Chistery. His wings too dipped off from his back, but on a whole he still seemed much more graceful, often able to step over his and generally make due as he had before the cumbersome limbs. He looked at her, head tilted off to the side, as if trying to understand something, a horny little hand point out at her own bony knee, the closest part of her body pointing out at him, though drapped in the fabric of her skirt.

"El...El..." He started, like a child beginning to learn to talk, and Elphaba leaned forwards, hardly daring to breath. She'd been working on this, trying to get the monkeys to regain their powers of speech. Was it possible that she's suceeded, now, of all times.

"El..._ekkkkkk_!" Chistery seemed angry with himself, hitting to floor with his fists. Elphaba's hopes were dashed - a pattern in her life, she knew. Standing up, she dusted herself off as if she actually cared if dirt had collected there from the floor. She sighed, not angry, but disappointed. Her work with them had still gotten her nowhere.

_**What would happen if they ever knew**_

_**I'm In love with you...**_

Her hand, that had reached up to rub her temples in what was considered a soothing way froze, as crying from the cellar doors below began to permiate the room. Huffing angrily, she didn't even bother to open the doors to yell this time, seeing as the last time she had the miserable little whining midget had only tried to rush her in a desperate bid to get her freedom.

"Oh, for Oz's sake, stop crying!!! I can't listen to it anymore! Oh, you want to see your Aunt Em and your Uncle What's-his-name again?! Then get those shoes off your feet!!!"

She wanted to add other things...'I'm not going to hurt you' (like she'd believe her)...'just be nice and shut up as you're giving me a terrible headache' (like she'd care, probably cry louder)... 'you'll probably never get home, as all the wizard is, is a lying old bastard' (like _that_ would go over). But she just could, right now, things needed to be done, and in a incredibly tight timeline.

First, she tried ignoring the girl as best she could, stepping across the floor, to make sure things were still going right. She checked to make sure the bucket was still getting filled under the sink faucet. And kicked at the hollow spot in the floor, which somehow she was going to have to kick open in order to make her dissappearance rather quickly. All the time, she kept thinking- a thing she seemed to do alot lately, as her love of talking was pretty much useless against the stoic guards, the monkey's who listened but never answered, and, of course, the whiny little brat and her mongrel Chistery'd grabbed a day ago, probably because he'd thought it'd help her.

Elphaba thought about the citizens of Oz; who althought they only wanted to see her dead in a pool of her own blood or something to that effect, she still felt pity for them...

...About Morrible and the Wizard- royal assholes that they were- and the many forms of torture she'd like to see them rithing in.

...About Boq- now the Tinman and leading the hunt for her head himself, for whom she, ironically, felt the most pity for.

...About Glinda- the pretty political figurehead whom she could help feeling hurt by even with the dozens of times she told herself the betrayal of the blissfully blonde airhead wasn't much to feel bad about.

...About her sister, Nessarose, now rotting in Central Munch somewhere beneath the floorboards of that retched farmgirl's house.

...About Fiyero- whom may not be as dead as she'd supposed, but she'd not seen in months, each bringing more worry over his well-being. Who, somehow, was marching in with the party who's goal was to get the girl alive and her dead.

Well, maybe they'd get her dead.

_**'Cause I'd surrender everything**_

_**To feel the chance to live again**_

_**I reach to you**_

_**I know you can feel it too**_

_**I surrender**_

"Oh Fiyero..." She whispered the words to herself, his name to herself. It was one of the few words she'd never tried teaching the monkeys- her lover's name. She'd never thought she could miss someone so much, and she never had before, not even her own sister.

_You missed Glinda this much. _Some thought in the back of her mind, taking on the small, impertive yet hesitant voice of her younger self, letting the now more stubberon, more turbulent Elphaba what she thought. _When you first went away from the Wizard's, you missed her alot. Glinda and Fiyero._

"I did not." She muttered aloud throught gritted teeth. Already the vivid imagination she'd always had in her childhood was working again in it's older body, bringing for the image of a sharp-featured, green-skinned girl with braided hair and plain dress, huddled in a navy coat too small now, and- and back then- for her tall frame; her long fingered hands drumming on the back of a packed suitcase, while the other pulled the corner of her hat lower so that they almost met with the rims of her glasses.

_Did too. You still do._

"I...do." Elphaba breathed, before burring her face in her hands, unable to hide what (of course) she already knew. "Oh Fiyero...Oh... Oh Glinda."

As the way with many things- it took a shorter amount of time to destroy her carefully-crackling flames than it had taken to bring them to life. Soon, only the lit bracket was left, casting even dark, more distorted darkness around the cold stone room. If Elphaba was going to cry- she wanted to go about it in the dark, in private.

_**Every night getting longer...**_

No matter how she tried to stay strong, Elphaba felt she was slowly comming apart at the seams. But she didn't cry now, not like she'd wepted over the monkeys. She felt sorry for them, and though most of her dearly wanted to say it was true, she didn't feel sorry for herself. Not quite.

And certainly, she wasn't sorry about what she'd done herself.

Cries that wern't her own whined out from below again, interrupting her in mid-thought.

"Little brat... takes a dead woman's shoes; must have been raised in a barn!"

Silence. Elphaba smiled, though it quickly disappeared, as she remembered how she'd probably never get to see anyone she cared about ever again., if what she was planning didn't work.

And if it did...

A shriek- this time not from below the floorboards. Chistery was standing, fixated on a shadowy corner interrupted her mid-thought. He seemed excited about something, chattering nonsensically.

"Chistery, please... if you don't at least try to keep speaking you will never..."

And then she noticed it...probably what Chistery was so excited about. The shivering light cast by the last lit framed hit a reflective surface- or rather, a thousand miniscule ones- in the forms of sparkles and sequins and tiny reflective mirrors on a obsurdly pouff of a ballgown skirt.

Slowly, she followed it up to a thin bodice, and pale, cream-skinned hands which clutched at a silver and diamond staff-like wand.

Although she had been thinking about this very person moments ago, somthing lit inside her, and Elphaba could not bring herself to complete her travels up to her old friend's face. Instead, she turned her back on her, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, and let silence stand between them until she could think of something to say.

And when it came, it even shocked her, a little.

"Go Away."

_**And this fire's getting stronger, baby...**_

If it was possible for a person to change in such a short time, Glinda had. Almost as soon as Elphaba had turned her back on her, she spoke- and she hardly recodnised the voice. It wasn't as high pitched or as admittably obnoxious ash she had found it in Shiz. Still shrill, one could definately tell that the person who spoke new, at least a little bit, about how to speak- and how to get someone's attention. A confident women.

And yet...Glinda was still there... If not just in likeness for fluffy, outlandish clothes and shrillness of vocals.

"They're coming for you."

_Well, arn't we the queen of the obvious. _Elphaba once more though, but didn't speak. Rather, striding across the room, directly away from the glitsy blonde, she repeated her earlire, short statement.

_**"Go Away!"**_

_Click Click Click._ The sounds of heels on stone echoed in the room, just over Dorothy's once-again-started cries.

"Let the little girl go, and that poor little dog... Dodo. "

If Elphaba thought she was simply insistant, then Glinda was beginning to order her about like a captin tirading her crew. And yet, Glinda's typical trait of name-mistakes was almost...comforting. It was something recodnisable. And once again, Elphaba's imagination conjured up the image of a girl- a different one this time, with peaches and cream complexion, perfectly coiffed hair, and a round heart-shaped face set with sky blue-doe eyes, which was giving her a serious pout- bottom lip jutting out childishly, arms crossed, and pink-slippered foot tapping on the ground impatiently, the way G(a)linda had always done whenever she was not getting her way, or was impatient...or...well...whenver she was ever really excited.

" I know you don't want to hear this, but someone has to say it... " The older, more confident voice of adult Glinda, comming from both the women in the room and the figure in her mind seemed odd. "You are out of control! I mean, come on! They're just shoes, let it go!"

A pause, then-

"Elphaba, you can't go on like this."

It was the worry in the Good Witch's voice that did it. The darker witch took it as being mixed with pity.

"I can do anything I want. I am the Wicked Witch of the West!" Turning on her heel, The Witch found herself inchs away from the smaller-women's on face. Glinda flinched back, as if, once again, she'd been physically smacked. She did not need to be lectured by blissfully airheaded blonde- she was a grown women! A supposed Felon! The most wanted women in Oz, for all the wrong reasons!

"Elphie..." It was amazing how the quaver in Glinda's voice shocked her, not to mention in conjunction with her old, annoyingly perky, nickname. Too late, she realised that she'd actually frightened one person left in the pitifully small group of people she'd originally cared about.

The silence was broken by footsteps. Or rather, pawsteps. Both women turned to seen another monkey (stumbling over her wings) approach them, a piece of torn paper-like cloth clutched in it's paws.

"At last! What took you so long?" Greatful for the distraction, Elphaba strode further away from Glinda, once again keeping her back to her (though once again, she could here the click of the women's heels approaching behind her.)

Elphaba squinted as she unrolled the fabric. Soft to her touch, it held nothing but a blank stretch of cotton cloth. Fiyero, she knew, had been sending her messages in such a way for the past month or so- with words scribbled on it with charcoal and such. It was still easy to get rid of- for the moment they got wet, the letters written in whatever it was would bleed together and wash off- eliminating a worry of it being read.

"What's this? Why are you bothering me with this?" She asked, knowing full well the monkey would not likely answer her.

Curiosity evidently in her voice (obviously being a busybody hadn't left Glinda since she'd grown), Elphaba felt her warm breaths on the back of her neck.

"What is it? What's wrong? It's Fiyero, isn't it? Is he..."

Elphaba was careful to crumble the letter in her hand, before Glinda had a real chance to see that there was nothing on it. Perhaps...this letter still be good for something...distracting Glinda.

Feinting sadness, Elphaba bowed her hand and tucked the not into her dress.

"We've seen his face for the last time."

It worked.

"Oh no!"

_**I'll swallow my pride,**_

_**And I'll be alive**_

_**Did you here my call**_

_**I'll surrender.**_

Once again, Elphaba set off, this time, to turn off the tap in the sink and remove the bucket of water from it, placing it on the floor.

"You're right." She stated, in what she hoped sounded like a resigned tone. "It's time I surrender."

And of course, Glinda picked it up right away- master linguist that she believed she was.

"Elphie... Elphie, what is it?"

Taking a deep breath, Elphaba did her best to keep any other infliction rather than regined fear from her voice, amazing herself with her own acting skills.

"You can't be found here! You must go!"

"No!"

For what seemed the hundreth time that night, her old friend surprised her. But she couldn't be phased now.

"You must!"

"No!" Followed by a loud crack, Elphaba realised that Glinda had, literally, put her foot down.

" Elphie, I'll tell them everything!"

Elphaba nearly jumped, and suddenly her vision seemed to swim again, suddenly and most definatley unwanted. She hadn't realised that her friend...well...that her friend still actually cared.

"No! They'll only turn against you."

_**"I don't care!"**_ Despite the ferocity behind the words, Glinda's voice tremored dangerously. Elphaba didn't need to lift her head, she recodnised such a tremor, and she was sure her friend did not want to be seen with all her makeup running down her cheeks, as much as Elphaba didn't want to be seen crying at all.

"I do! Promise me, promise me, you won't try to clear my name..." A choked cry, made Elphaba actually look up, for the first time she'd done in so many months, possibly years, she willing approached her friend.

"Promise."

"I- " Elphaba put her hand on her friends shoulder, gently bringing her to her chest, and Glinda sobbed again.

"Alright... I promise. But I don't understand-"

"I don't expect you to...all you have to do is promise."

Someone touched her back, and for a moment, Elphaba though it was Glinda returning her hug. Only when the touch turned into a downwards pull on her skirt did she look down and see Chistery, cradling an old- torn and musty book as if it were the most precious of children.

And Elphaba realised there was something else she needed Glinda to promise. A bash on the door made all three- both women, and the monkey- turn to the door. The witch hunters were here.

Releasing her friend with the only hand that still grasped her, Elphaba replaced in Glinda's embrace the Grimmerie.

"Here. Go on. Take this."

Staring from the book to her friends odd-hued face, the blonde was clearly perplexed.

"Elphie... you know I can't read this... Elphie?!..." Elphaba hated that tone in her friend's usually jovial voice.

"Well then, you'll have to learn!" She snapped, before softening her tone once more, choking back a longer explanation, in order to say the words that would finally make Glinda understand what was really happening.

" For both of us.You're the only friend I've ever had."

"And I've had so many friends... but only one that mattered."

Before she could even react, Elphaba was grabbed in a ferocious hug from the smaller, tafita-blanketed women. Still, she had enough room that, after a few seconds in the awkward embrace, she was able to turn in the encirvled arms, and return with a bear-hug of her own.

_**So I'll surrender everything,**_

_**To feel the chance to live again**_

_**I reach to you**_

**I hope you can feel it too**

**I'll surrender**

_Bang Bang __**BANG! **_Serious of gigantic, room shaking, wood splintering bashes from the other side of the door interupted this last bittersweet moment. Elphaba was the first to break apart, while Glinda clung on like a child clutches at her mother's skirts. This worried her- within minutes, not hours, appeared- she'd have to go through with a heavily flawed plan. And now, Glinda was inadvertantly mixed up in it, for there was no way, it seemed, the blonde would be able to escape in time, without being seen by those who thirsted for her blood. How would it be explained when Her Goodness was found with the most horrible felon in all of the country?

"You have to hide. No one can know you were here. Hide yourself!" Wrenching herself from her friend's embrace, she turned to giving her a slight shove in the direction of the dark corner she had originally appeared from.

But after stumbling a few feet, Glinda steadied herself, and clearly would have nothing of it.

" Elphie...Please tell me ! What are you going to do?! What's happening!?

" HIDE!" She screeched. The last words to her best friend.

A few clicks, a sob...and when Elphaba turned around, she caught only the slightest glimpse of a bit of gown disappearing into the shadows of the corner. Elphaba's mouth opened to say goodbye, while at the same time, there was a sickening crack, and the door caved in: revealing her with mouth slightly agape, stearing into the great mass of her murders.

Well...lets see how much longer I can continue with this fascade. She though, letting her eyes cross from each villagers face, to rest on the cold, metallic and now unrecodnisable eyes of the Tin Man.

She cackled.

"Welcome, my pretties!"

**Last Note:** Please R&R...I love to here if anybody bothers to read my stuff.


End file.
